By Ani­ta Snow, David Gold­man and Lisa Marie Pane, The Asso­ci­at­ed Press

Chant­i­ng “This isn’t over! and “Stop the steal,” sup­port­ers of Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump protest­ed at state cap­i­tals across the coun­try Sat­ur­day, refus­ing to accept defeat and echo­ing Trump’s unsub­stan­ti­at­ed alle­ga­tions that the Democ­rats won the elec­tion by fraud.

From Atlanta and Tal­la­has­see to Bis­mar­ck, Boise and Phoenix, crowds rang­ing in size from a few dozen to a few thou­sand decried the news of Joe Biden’s vic­to­ry after more than three exhaust­ing days of vote-count­ing put the Demo­c­rat over the top. Skir­mish­es broke out in some places.

In Atlanta, out­side the state Capi­tol in the long­time Repub­li­can strong­hold of Geor­gia, chants of “Lock him up!” rang out among an esti­mat­ed 1,000 Trump sup­port­ers. Oth­ers chant­ed, “This isn’t over! This isn’t over!” and “Fake news!” The streets were awash with Amer­i­can flags and Trump banners.

No imme­di­ate vio­lence was report­ed, though at one point, police moved to sep­a­rate Trump oppo­nents from sup­port­ers. Biden held a slim lead in Geor­gia, which hasn’t gone for a Demo­c­rat since 1992.

Jor­dan Kel­ley, a 29-year-old from Murfrees­boro, Ten­nessee, drove three-plus hours to Atlanta to attend the pro-Trump rally.

“There’s elec­tion fraud going on here,” said Kel­ley, claim­ing that vot­ers in Geor­gia, a state with a GOP gov­er­nor and sec­re­tary of state, had improp­er­ly count­ed the bal­lots to put Biden ahead. “Even though I live in Ten­nessee, I’m an Amer­i­can, and I want to make sure Amer­i­cans have a voice in the election.”

He planned to make the 10-hour trip to Wash­ing­ton next week to demon­strate on the steps of the Supreme Court, where Trump and his lawyers have vowed to even­tu­al­ly make his case.

Under­scor­ing the hard feel­ings on both sides of the nation’s deep polit­i­cal divide, anti-Trump pro­test­ers in Wash­ing­ton booed, yelled pro­fan­i­ties, shout­ed “Los­er! Los­er!” and gave the fin­ger to Trump’s motor­cade as the pres­i­dent returned to the White House from a golf out­ing Saturday.

Con­trary to the claims of Trump sup­port­ers, there has been no evi­dence of any seri­ous vote fraud. And some Repub­li­can elect­ed offi­cials around the coun­try began to dis­tance them­selves from Trump and urge him to accept the out­come gracefully.

A cou­ple of thou­sand Trump sup­port­ers gath­ered at the Penn­syl­va­nia Capi­tol in Har­ris­burg with Amer­i­can flags, Trump flags and “Stop the Steal” signs.

“If we don’t stop this today, it’ll all be over,” Bruce Fields, 66, said of news orga­ni­za­tions declar­ing Biden the win­ner. “Oth­er­wise we can kiss free­dom goodbye.”

About two dozen heav­i­ly armed men, some wear­ing cam­ou­flage, joined the rally.

At the Ari­zona Capi­tol in Phoenix, a crowd swelled to more than 1,000 with­in hours. Biden won Ari­zona on his way to vic­to­ry in the Elec­toral College.

“It’s very sus­pi­cious that Pres­i­dent Trump, with the red wave we’ve been see­ing in Ari­zona, is strug­gling,” Kel­li Ward, for­mer state sen­a­tor and chair­woman of the Ari­zona Repub­li­can Par­ty, told a bois­ter­ous pro-Trump demon­stra­tors. “I want to know if there is any dis­crep­an­cy with the num­bers com­ing out of the machines.”

Even in a place that wasn’t close, Trump sup­port­ers gath­ered in droves to express sup­port for him and vent frus­tra­tion at the out­come of the elec­tion. Out­side of North Dakota’s Capi­tol in Bis­mar­ck, the state’s all-Repub­li­can con­gres­sion­al del­e­ga­tion joined pro­test­ers car­ry­ing pro-Trump signs and ban­ners and chant­i­ng, “Four more years!” and “Stop the steal!”

A few skir­mish­es broke out between Trump back­ers and a few pro-Biden and Black Lives Mat­ters demon­stra­tors, with one BLM sup­port­er attempt­ing to hand­cuff him­self to a Trump sup­port­er. The two men began wrestling on the ground.

An offi­cer escort­ed the Black Lives Mat­ter sup­port­er to a squad car. It was unclear if he had been arrested.

In Lans­ing, Michi­gan, about 50 Trump sup­port­ers and a small­er group of marchers car­ry­ing Black Lives Mat­ter flags con­verged on the state Capi­tol, where they pushed, shoved and shout­ed at one anoth­er in a tense stand­off. But with­in moments of the race being called, a few from both sides broke into prayer, and at least one pair hugged.

Ten­sions flared again when more Trump sup­port­ers arrived on the scene. BLM mem­bers retreat­ed through the grow­ing crowd.

Frank Dobbs, 40, of Hen­der­son, Neva­da, brought a bull­horn and a blue Trump 2020 flag that he wres­tled with in a stiff wind dur­ing a ral­ly out­side the Clark Coun­ty reg­is­trar of vot­ers office in North Las Vegas.

“It’s not over until it’s over. There’s still the courts. If ever there’s ever a time to expose wide­spread fraud, this is the pres­i­dent to do it,” Dobbs said. “The media doesn’t decide who wins the pres­i­den­cy. The legal vot­ers of this coun­try decide.”

AP jour­nal­ists Joce­lyn Noveck in New York City and Anna Liz Nichols in Lans­ing, Mich., con­tributed to this report. Gold­man report­ed from Lans­ing, Mich., and Snow con­tributed from Phoenix.